August g, 1906] 



NA TURE 



367 



(hereby. The chairman of the committee is Mr. Herbert 

 Samuel, M.P., and the members are Prof. Clifford Allbutt, 

 F.R.S., Mr. H. II. Cunynghame, C.B., and Dr. T. M. 

 Legge. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times states that a 

 mission to investigate the subject of sleeping sickness is 

 lo leave Paris in October next for Brazzaville. The leader 

 of the mission is to be Major Martin, of the French 

 Medical Corps, who has worked at Saigon and at Lille 

 in the Pasteur Institutes, and already had an oppor- 

 tunity in Guinea of studying sleeping sickness. He is to 

 be assisted by Dr. Lebeuf, M. Roubaud, and M. Weiss. 

 .\ftir establishing a permanent central laboratory the 

 mission will begin the direct study of the malady up 

 country. Special attention will be paid to the Upper 

 Ubangi region. The mission also intends to combat the 

 small-pox which is decimating French African possessions, 

 but the main object is to fight the tsetse fly by every 

 means that the resources of science can suggest. 



In a letter to the Times of Tuesday last, Dr. Hamil- 

 ton Wright, chairman of the late Port Swettenham 

 Sanitary Commission, directs attention to the successful 

 measures taken to stamp out malaria at Port Swetten- 

 hain. The port was designed by the Government of the 

 Federated Malay States to replace that of Klang, on the 

 upper tidal reach of the river of the same name. It was 

 jungle-covered, flooded daily by tides, and incident to an 

 average of about lOO inches of rainfall a year. The rail- 

 way station and bungalows for officials and coolies were 

 on made ground. . On the formal opening of the port, 

 Klang was abandoned, and the river closed to sea-going 

 vessels. Severe malaria immediately broke out amongst 

 the officials and coolies employed on the railway and 

 shipping. A commission was at once appointed, composed 

 of medical men, railway and works officials, and instructed 

 to devise measures for the suppression of malaria and other- 

 wise to sanitise the port. The recommendations of the 

 commission involved an outlay of from 10,000/. to 12,000/. 

 The Government, without any hesitation, accepted the re- 

 commendations made by the commission ; the new port 

 was dyked, drained, levelled, and cleared, the result being 

 that since these sanitary measures were initiated there has 

 been scarcely a case of malaria at the port, and from being 

 an unhealthy, shunned swamp, the port Is now sought by 

 officials as a desirable billet. 



Information has reached the British Medical Journal 

 that Dr. W. J. Goodhue, medical superintendent of the 

 Molokai Leper Settlement, has, after several years of 

 research, succeeded in demonstrating the bacillus of leprosy 

 in the mosquito (Culex pungens) and the common bed-bug 

 {Ciinex lectularius). Dr. Goodhue expresses the opinion 

 that the bed-bug is more of a factor in the spread of 

 leprosy among the natives than the gnat, for the follow- 

 ing reasons, that the bed-bug's invasion is noiseless and 

 occurs during deep sleep of the victim, and secondly, the 

 beds and bedding which have belonged to a leper are after 

 his death or segregation used by his family without 

 adequate disinfection. 



We regret to have to announce the death of Sir 

 Alexander Moncrieff, K.C.B., F.R.S. (the inventor of the 

 " disappearing " gun which bears his name), which took 

 place on Friday last at the age of seventy-seven years. 



The Athenaeum announces the death, in his sixty- 

 seventh year, of Prof. G. A. P. Rayet, director of the 

 observatory at Floirac, Bordeaux. 

 NO. T9I9, VOL. 74] 



A MONUMENT is to be erected at Briinn to the memory 

 of Mendel, and an international committee has been formed 

 at Vienna to further the object. 



Mr. W. Eagle Clarke has been appointed by the Secre- 

 tary for Scotland keeper of the natural history collec- 

 tions of the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, in 

 succession to Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S., who is about 

 to retire. 



Mr. Henry Revv has been appointed an assistant- 

 secretary to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 

 succession to Major P. G. Craigie, C.B., who has just 

 retired. 



Prof. A. Bergt has been appointed acting director of 

 the Leipzig Museum of Ethnology in place of the late 

 Prof. Obst. 



The following telegram, dated August 2, respecting Dr. 

 Sven Hedin's journey, has been received at Stockholm from 

 the explorer at Leh (Kashmir) : — " All well ; our journey 

 is most promising; our large, well-equipped caravan of 

 120 carriers is capital and our men are trustworthy." 



According to the Museums Journal, the portrait of Dr. 

 A. J. Evans, F.R.S. , is to be painted by Sir W. B. Rich- 

 mond, R.A., and deposited in the Ashmolean Museum, in 

 commemoration of the services rendered to archaeology by 

 Dr. Evans. A general committee, representative not only 

 of this country, but of Europe and the United States of 

 America, has been formed to carry out the project. 



The Moxon medal of the Royal College of Physicians 

 of London, which is given every third year, has been 

 awarded to Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S. 



At the concluding meeting of the International Con- 

 ference on Hybridisation and Plant Breeding on Thursday 

 last, Veitch gold memorial medals were presented to Mr. 

 W. Bateson, F.R.S., the president of the conference. Prof. 

 Johannsen, Prof. Wittmack, and Prof. Maurice de 

 Vilmorin, and silver-gilt Banksian medals to Miss E. R. 

 Saunders, lecturer on botany at Newnham College, and 

 Mr. R. H. Biffen, for eminent services rendered to scien- 

 tific and practical horticulture. Prof, de Vilmorin, as the 

 representative of the Horticultural Society and the 

 Botanical Society of France, invited the society to hold its 

 next conference at Paris. 



The Bradshaw lecture will be delivered at the Royal 

 College of Physicians, London, on November 6 by Dr. 

 Sharkey, who will take as his subject " Rectal Alimenta- 

 tion " ; the FitzPatrick lectures will be given by Dr. 

 Norman Moore on November 8 and 13, and will deal 

 with the " History of the Study of Clinical Medicine in 

 the British Islands"; and the Horace Dobell lecture by 

 Dr. F. W. Andrews, on November 15, will treat of the 

 " Evolution of the Streptococci." 



The following courses of lectures have been arranged 

 for by the Royal Sanitary Institute : — one on " Hygiene 

 in its bearing on School Life," beginning on September 17, 

 and a special course on " Food and Meat Inspection," 

 commencing on November 12. 



The International -Anti-Tuberculosis Conference will be 

 held at the Hague from September 6-8 next, when the 

 following questions will probably be discussed : — Ways of 

 infection ; specific therapeutics ; compulsory notification ; 

 cost of sanatoria ; dispensaries ; tuberculosis in children ; 

 and education. 



